Oswald almost levitated with excitement. I knew it, I knew it. He had trouble getting out of the basket and rocked back and forth, spilling out on his third try. He scrambled up to the front door, just as it latched shut. He leaned his ear against the door to listen.
“Of course. Why don’t we go on the back deck, so you can take some pictures,” Miss Ann said.
Isn’t that lovely. They’re going to take photographs. They must think I’m in bed under the deck—anyone could make that mistake.
He stumbled down the porch steps, stopped to study his reflection in a puddle, fixed his fur, then scurried toward the back of the house.
When he got to the deck, he couldn’t believe what he heard.
“Yes, this is the goose that crashed onto our porch roof last night, during the storm,” Miss Ann said. Oswald heard the clicking of the camera.
“Let’s get a shot of the person who saved the goose, holding the bird,” the woman reporter said.
“That’s Mr. Edwards,” Miss Ann said.
“No, it was a group effort,” Mr. Edwards said.
Oswald walked up a couple of steps and peered onto the deck.
When did Mr. Edwards come over? I must have slept through that, too. Oswald didn’t like being out of the loop. The goose was an odd-looking thing. It had pink webbed feet and a black neck that looked too long for the rest of it.
The woman reporter arranged them all for the photo, Joey happily crowding in.
“Ms. Jones, how about you sit with the goose on your lap, and Mr. Edwards, you stand behind,” the photographer said, but Joey interrupted him.
“It’s Naja. Her name is Naja.”
“OK, Naja it is,” the photographer said as he clicked away.
Off to the side, Oswald didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Why on earth would the newspaper want her picture? What had the goose done to deserve all this fuss? After all he’d been through, now a total stranger, out of nowhere, was getting her picture in the paper?
Joey noticed Oswald peering over the deck. He jumped up. “Let’s have Oswald in the picture, too. He was there.”
Everyone looked at Oswald. “I guess I could fit in a quick photo shoot this morning.” But it seemed the two reporters, like Miss Ann, couldn’t understand Animal, because they acted as though he hadn’t said anything.
The reporter looked nervous. “That big old rat? I don’t know . . . ”
“A rat? Who does she think he is? What a toadstool!”
“Oswald, that’s not very nice,” Joey said.
“Your son speaks Animal?” asked the photographer.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with being a rat, of course,” Oswald said to Joey.
“Not now,” Joey said out of the side of his mouth to Oswald.
Miss Ann gave an odd laugh and walked over to Joey. She put an arm around him, blocking Oswald’s view. “He’s our regular Dr. Dolittle all right. Understands Animal better than most people.” She gave Joey a little squeeze. “Come on, boo.” Miss Ann guided Joey toward Mr. Edwards, the photographer, and that weird big bird in the blue plastic laundry basket.
“Not my blue plastic basket.” Oswald bustled up the final step, waddled over to the basket, and sank his teeth into the plastic. “Come on—fly away, you interfering, egg-laying vertebrate!” He braced all four paws and tugged. His strength surprised him. He tugged again, and the basketful of bird teetered on the edge of the deck. The bird squawked and flapped one wing. Mr. Edwards and Joey grabbed the basket from the other side and ripped it away from Oswald.
“Don’t! Her wing is broken, Oswald. That’ll really hurt!” Joey yelped.
Oswald blinked. “How was I to know?” He hadn’t meant to hurt her, only inspire her to leave.
Mr. Edwards returned the basket of goose to Miss Ann.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him. He’s a real nuisance, that possum,” Mr. Edwards said. He chased Oswald down the steps and under the deck. Oswald turned around to give Mr. Edwards a piece of his mind but stopped before he got a word out. Mr. Edwards’s face looked large as he crouched down and glared. He whispered, but it sounded more like a deep growl.
“The newspaper you all lost hold of nearly killed that poor bird.”
“Ah well, maybe her number was up? Her goose would have been cooked, as they say,” Oswald snickered.
Mr. Edwards shook his head. “OK, Oswald, I’m going to say this once. You keep this up and it’s over. The end. Next stop, the big porch in the sky.”
And with that, Mr. Edwards disappeared.
Oswald paced under the deck. Probably best to stay out of sight for a while. Let them come to their senses. He could hear what was happening on top of the deck and could see glimpses between the boards.
The photographer took a bunch of pictures. Then the lady reporter talked to Miss Ann and Mr. Edwards, asking them what they knew about such “cross-breed geese.” He heard the words “Canada” and “pink-footed.”
Finally, the humans left. Zola stayed behind with Melvin and that stupid bird. Oswald clambered up onto the deck. Surely Melvin and Zola will also be horrified at all this nonsense over a bird.
But Oswald’s day was about to get worse. There they were—Melvin and Zola—gathered around this goose, listening to her tell a story as though it were the most amazing adventure they’d ever heard.
12
A CANDID CANINE
Oswald joined his friends on the deck, leaned against the railing, and draped his front limbs on top of his belly. “Melvin, Zola, please, what’s going on? Has this bird put a spell on you?”
“Shh.” Melvin waved his friend away. “She was just getting to the good parts. I want to hear this.”
“Melvin, have you been in the catnip again? Come on, dear boy. This is a bird. Remember roast chicken? I hear goose is lovely with a—”
“Honk!” was the first thing the goose said to Oswald.
“Oswald, stop it. Don’t upset her—she’s been through enough,” Zola said.
Oswald couldn’t believe his ears. “Zola, not you, too?”
Zola got up and in two large steps stood over Oswald like a tent made out of dog. Oswald shuddered. Zola bent down and gently picked him up by the scruff of his neck.
“Put me down this minute. I will not stand for this,” Oswald protested while paddling his four limbs in the air.
Zola carried Oswald to the back of the yard, reached her head over the fence as far as she could, and dropped the possum about three feet from the ground.
Oswald landed on soft weeds.
Zola lowered herself on the other side of the fence, bringing her head level with Oswald’s.
“Oh, dear Zola, I do hope you realize I was merely joking. Of course I’m interested in what that bird—”
“Stop,” Zola barked. Oswald jumped back. He looked past Zola at the deck. Melvin sat on the railing, watching them, his tail swished back and forth.
“Hurry up, Zola. I want to hear the rest.” Melvin jumped down and disappeared from view.
Zola looked right into Oswald’s eyes. “Oswald, you know I like you.”
Oswald nodded. “I cherish our friendship too, dear Zola.”
“But you crossed a line this time. You could have really hurt that poor goose, and she’s already injured. Maybe now’s a good time for a vacation.”
“But I’ve been away—seen the world, my candid canine friend.”
Zola shook her scruffy head, got up stiffly, and walked back to the deck.
Oswald scurried back and forth along the fence. “You misunderstood me. I was merely trying to remedy a mix-up—save all of you embarrassment. Surely, the newspaper people came for me.” Oswald said this and a whole lot more until he finally realized a frightening fact: no one is listening to me.
13
BIT OF A PREDICAMENT
Oswald knew his friends weren’t serious. As soon as he made it big, he would buy a huge house where they’d all have their own rooms—Joey, Miss Ann, Melvin, and
himself, plus a few guest rooms. Zola could stay over anytime she wanted. They’d have a Jacuzzi and maybe a mud bath although he wasn’t sure what that was, and a full-time cook. Definitely a full-time cook.
He went over to the Edwardses’ back fence and rooted around for the gap he used to use when he was younger. He squeezed through—it had been a long time.
How lovely. He’d forgotten how magical the Edwardses’ garden was, an oasis of green paths, flowering bushes, and jasmine-covered archways.
He waddled down the garden path, turned left, and pressed through azalea bushes to the fence between the Edwardses’ and the Joneses’ yards. His friends’ voices drifted over.
“He’s OK, really, but he does get on my nerves sometimes,” Zola said.
“Your nerves?” Melvin said. “Man, oh, man. He is one high-maintenance marsupial.”
There was a pause. Oswald felt bad. Is that a bumper sticker or something? Am I truly that difficult?
“Then why are you friends with him?” Naja the goose asked.
Oswald dove through the old fence hole where he first entered Miss Ann’s garden when he was a little joey himself, not long out of his mother’s pouch. It had been lonely being the only baby to survive from that litter, and his mother was glad he’d found Joey and Melvin as friends. That was all a few months before Oswald’s mother died in an unfortunate accident with a delivery truck.
But now that Oswald was fully grown, the fence panel was too snug. He was stuck halfway through the fence. At least he was hidden under a daisy bush. He could see them pretty well if he tilted his head and looked through the stems.
“What was that?” Zola woofed.
Melvin rolled on his back and licked a spot on his side. Naja, still sitting in Oswald’s blue basket, craned her neck and looked around. Oswald held still; he didn’t make a sound.
“Someone from a rescue center’s coming soon for you, Naja. I heard Miss Ann on the phone,” Melvin said.
“Yes, Naja, please go on—finish what you were telling us,” Zola said.
Oh bother, I’m going to have to hear all this rubbish.
“You see, I’m a cross-breed goose. My father was a pink-footed and my mother was a Canada goose. He’d made a wrong turn one year on his migration from Greenland to Great Britain and ended up in New Jersey instead.”
“That’s some wrong turn,” Melvin said.
“I know. He was a stubborn old bird. It was only after another eight hundred miles that he admitted he was lost.”
Zola gave a soft whistle. “Poor guy. He must have been exhausted.”
“He was. He wound up in a place called Schlegel Lake.” Naja stretched and tried to flap her wings but winced and stopped. “There were a number of Canada geese there, and my dad fell in love with my mother, but her flock never accepted him.”
Yes, yes . . . we all feel misunderstood at some point. I know what it’s like to grow up the only one of your kind. But come on, move on. I have, Oswald thought.
“You see, everyone in a flock usually looks and acts the same. Not only did my father look and act different, he sounded different, too.” Naja trailed off, made a sound between a wheeze and a honk, and put her head under her wing.
“What is it?” Zola said and pawed at the blue slatted basket.
“I’ve never fit in. My feet and beak are too pink for the Canada geese. My honk doesn’t sound right. My neck’s too long for the rest of me. All the other goslings picked on me.” She shuddered.
“Why not join a pink-footed flock?” asked Zola.
“There’s no guarantee they’d accept me either. And anyway, I can’t fly all the way to Greenland on my own.”
They were all quiet for a moment.
For goodness’ sake, take a bus, Oswald thought.
Naja sat up in the basket. “But it hasn’t been all bad. If I hadn’t crashed, I wouldn’t have met you two, and Miss Ann and Joey. You’ve all been so kind. I’m sorry I have to leave.”
“Why don’t you come back once your wing is healed?” Zola said.
Oswald thought he might faint, or at least throw up. He felt more than left out, he felt like he never existed.
“But Naja, I don’t understand. Why were you flying this far from New Jersey to begin with?” Melvin asked.
“I heard there were some groups of mixed-breed birds in Virginia. I was heading down there when the storm hit,” Naja said.
Well, I’ve heard plenty. Besides, I’m hungry. I wonder if Mrs. Edwards might have a snack. She used to feed me . . . after the accident.
But when he tried to back out of the fence hole, he couldn’t—he was stuck. He tried pushing through and backing out—nothing. How humiliating. He had no choice, but as he was about to holler for help, he heard Miss Ann’s voice from the deck.
“Yes, here she is. My son Joey speaks Animal. She said her name is Naja, obviously a girl.”
“Well then, Naja, nice to meet you.” Oswald didn’t recognize this other woman’s voice. “You and your son are welcome to come and visit her and us at the center.” He parted the daisies to look, no longer worried about being seen.
“Thank you. I think Joey would like that,” she said.
Miss Ann is willing to drive all the way to who knows where to see a goose she just met? The animal worker lifted the goose from the basket into a transport cage. With the goose out of the way, Oswald figured it was safe to rejoin his friends and called out. He made a hissing noise, like bacon sizzling but louder.
The woman looked out into the yard. “Sounds like a possum. Wonder if it’s in distress?”
This is hopeful. Oswald made more sizzling-hissing sounds.
Miss Ann sighed. “In that case, I bet I know who it is. We have a troublesome one around here. We’re working on relocating him.”
“I’m afraid I only work with fowl,” the woman said. “But I can call my colleague.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll handle it. Thanks for helping with Naja. She is awfully sweet.”
The woman clicked the transport cage shut, music to Oswald’s ears. He waited through the good-byes and until he heard the van drive away.
“Excuse me, Miss Ann, Zola, Melvin? Can any of you hear me? If you would be so kind, I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a predicament.”
The stems of the daisies parted. Miss Ann looked down at him, one hand on her hip.
“You’re not welcome here anymore.” She whipped a dish towel from her back pocket, covered his face, and pushed him backward through the fence hole.
“Miss Ann, please, you are pushing in the wrong direction.” Oswald didn’t like having his face covered. “Certainly there’s a better way,” came out in muffled tones.
“Please don’t bite me,” Miss Ann said, which cut through Oswald like a laser. He would never bite anyone, not unless his life depended on it. And he would never bite Joey or Miss Ann.
All of a sudden, he popped back through the fence into the Edwardses’ yard. Oswald brushed himself off and looked at Miss Ann through the hole. He knew she couldn’t understand Animal, but he couldn’t stop from explaining himself.
“I am astounded that you would think I would ever bite you. Why don’t we sit down sometime, get to know each other better? Possibly, say, over a dinner?”
Miss Ann remained crouched down, looking at him through the hole. “I know you’re trying to tell me something.”
She stood up. All Oswald could see now were her sneakers. “We could have takeout. I didn’t mean to presume you would cook.”
And then, all at once, a bright-orange-and-purple plastic tray came down across the hole.
14
RIGHT AND OUT OF SIGHT
Jazz piano music drifted from the Edwardses’ bungalow. Ah, Lillian’s home. Oswald went to their back screen door and banged his forehead against the lower panel. The music stopped. A beat later, Lillian appeared on the other side. She looked out into the backyard. When Oswald knocked again, she looked down and laughed. “Oh, it’s you.”
Oswald wasn’t sure how to take Lillian sometimes. He gave a little bow. “Yes, sorry to bother you. I wonder if you might have a snack you could spare?” Lillian understood Animal.
“You know I don’t believe in feeding wild animals, not once you’re grown. It’s not good for you.”
“I can assure you I’m not wild.” He sniffed the air. “Any of your delectable baked goods by chance?”
“Exactly my point. Besides, you best be getting out of here before Mr. Edwards gets home.” Lillian started to close the door.
Oswald stepped halfway through to keep it open. “Why?” Oswald didn’t like it when folks were upset with him, and the number of those who were seemed to be growing.
Lillian was already through her kitchen into the hallway beyond. She stopped and turned over her shoulder. “He said I should have seen your face. Looked like you wanted to kill that poor bird.” She shook her head. “Make sure the door shuts on your way out—thanks.” She disappeared into another room.
Oswald backed out of the door. It clicked shut. The sound echoed in his head and heart with the realization of how many of his friends were angry with him.
Surely this is just a misunderstanding. He was very fond of the Edwards. They’d saved him after his mother died. He wouldn’t have survived otherwise. They took him in, sought the advice of local opossum experts, made him a nice nest in their garage, and fed him until he was old enough to fend for himself. That was when he moved in under Miss Ann’s deck.
Oswald’s heart beat faster and his paw pads were sweaty. He had that funny feeling in his stomach, like when he gave a speech—or rather like when he thought about giving a speech, as he hadn’t given any yet. I must speak to Joey—surely, he still likes me.
Oswald checked the position of the sun—it was about one o’clock. Joey wouldn’t be home yet. Fiddle. By now he’d missed his mid- and late-morning naps and he was ravenous. He walked down Perry Street and turned through the alley to Rhode Island Avenue. If he was lucky, there would be late lunchers and he could find some scraps.
Perfect. A woman in heels and a suit hurrying to her car dropped three fat French fries, still warm.
Oswald, the Almost Famous Opossum Page 5
